Why it works: Sugar and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,481 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Mock Cherry Pie
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the filling
Cut cranberries in half and remove seeds.
Finely chop the raisins.
Mix cornstarch with sugar, then add to hot water.
Cook the mixture until thick, then cool.
Assemble and bake
Pour the cooled mixture into a pie tin lined with pastry.
Cover with a top crust or arrange small strips of pastry on top.
Bake at 400°F (200°C) until the crust is brown.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
The flavor team
The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.
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Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,481 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Cornstarch
- Thickens the syrupy filling as it cooks and then sets when cooled.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the filling and helps give it a glossy, syrupy body.
- Cranberries
- Provide the tart, fruity flavour and red colour that mimic cherries.
- Raisins
- Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness to the filling.
The step that matters
Cook the mixture until thick, then cool. Cornstarch only thickens once it has been heated enough to gelatinise its starch. Cooking until thick and then cooling lets the filling set properly, so it holds its shape when sliced instead of running out of the pie.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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